is going to be a nightmare when it hits the press,” Melissa said. Being an illegitimate princess herself, she would certainly know. Until recently she’d lived in the U.S., unaware that she was heir to the throne of Morgan Isle.
“And what about the Gingerbread Man?” Louisa asked, speaking up for the first time. “I’m sure he’ll use the opportunity to try to scare us.”
The self-proclaimed Gingerbread Man was the extremely disturbed man who had been harassing the royal family for more than a year. He began by hacking their computer system and sending Anne and her siblings twisted and grisly versions of fairy tales, then he breached security on the palace grounds to leave an ominous note. Not long after, posing as housekeeping staff, he’d made it as far as the royal family’s private waiting room at the hospital. Hours after he was gone, security found the chilling calling card he’d left behind. An envelope full of photographs of Anne and her siblings that the Gingerbread Man had taken in various places so they would know that he was there, watching.
He would sometimes be silent for months, yet every time they thought they had heard the last of him, he would reappear out of the blue. He sent a basket of rotten fruit for Christmas and an e-mail congratulating Chris and Melissa about the triplets before her pregnancy had even been formally announced.
His most recent stunt had been breaking into the florist the night before Aaron and Liv’s wedding in March and spraying the flowers with something that had caused them to wilt just in time for the ceremony.
Anne was sure he would pull something when he learned of her pregnancy, but she refused to let him get to her. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “I don’t care what the Gingerbread Man does,” she said, lifting her chin in defiance. “Personally, I’m all for drawing him out into the open so he makes a mistake and gets caught.”
“Which we have agreed not to do,” Chris said sternly.
Aaron asked the next obvious question. “What about the father of the baby? Is he taking responsibility?”
“Like I said, it was a one-night thing.”
Chris frowned. “He didn’t offer to marry you?”
This was where it was going to get tricky. “No. Besides, he’s not a royal.”
“I don’t give a damn who he is. He needs to take responsibility for his actions.”
“Liv and Garrett aren’t royals. And I’m only half-royal,” Melissa added.
“It doesn’t matter. He’s out of the picture,” Anne insisted.
“And that was his choice?” Aaron asked.
Anne bit her lip.
“Anne?” Chris asked, and when she remained silent he cursed under his breath. “He doesn’t know, does he?”
“Trust me when I say, he’s better off.”
Melissa made a clucking noise, as though she were thoroughly disappointed in Anne.
“That is not your decision to make,” Chris said. “I don’t care who he is, he has a right to know he’s going to have a child. To keep it from him is unconscionable.”
She knew deep down that he was right. But she was feeling hurt and bitter and stubborn. If Sam didn’t want her, why should he be allowed access to their child?
“Sam may be a politician, but he’s a good man,” Chris said.
Once again, mouths fell open in surprise, including her own. She hadn’t told anyone the father’s identity. Not even Louisa. “How did you—”
“Simple math. You don’t honestly think Melissa and I could go through months of infertility treatments and a high-risk pregnancy without learning a thing or two about getting pregnant? Conception would have had to have occurred around the time of the charity ball. And do you really think that Sam’s sneaking out in the middle of the night would go unnoticed? “
No, of course not. They were under a ridiculously tight lockdown these days. “You never said anything.”
“What was I supposed to say? You’re a grown woman. As long as you’re discreet, who you sleep with is your business.” He put both hands on her shoulders. “But now, you need to call him and set up a meeting.”
“Why, so you can have a talk with him?”
“No. So you can. Because it’s not only unfair to Sam, it’s unfair to that baby you’re carrying. He or she deserves the chance to know their father. If that’s what Sam wants.”
“He’s right,” Louisa said. “Put yourself in Sam’s place.”
“You should definitely tell him the truth,” Aaron said.
She fiddled with the hem of her sweater, unable to meet Chris’s eyes, knowing he was right. If not for Sam, then for the baby’s sake. “I’m not sure what to say to him.”
“Well,” Melissa said. “I often find it’s best to start with the truth.”
Sam had just ended a call with the Secretary of State of DFID, or what the Brits called the Department for International Development, when his secretary, Grace, rang him.
“You have a visitor, sir.”
A visitor? He didn’t recall any appointments on the calendar for this afternoon. This was typically his time for any calls that needed to be made. Had Grace scheduled another appointment she’d forgotten to mention? Or maybe she had entered information incorrectly into the computer again.
He was sure at one time she had been an asset to his father’s office, but now she was at least ten years past mandatory retirement.
“Do they have an appointment?” he asked her.
“No, sir, but—”
“Then I don’t have time. I’ll be happy to see them after they schedule an appointment.” He hung up, wishing he could gently persuade his father to let her go, or at the very least assign her to someone else. But she had been with the office since the elder Baldwin was a young politician just starting out and he was as fiercely loyal to her as she was to him. Sam may have suspected some sort of indiscretion had it not been for the fact that she was fifteen years his father’s senior, and they were both very happily married to other people.
There was a knock at his office door and Sam groaned inwardly, gathering every bit of his patience. Did Grace not understand the meaning of the word no? “What is it?” he snapped, probably a bit more harshly than she deserved.
The door opened, but it wasn’t Grace standing there. It was Anne. Princess Anne, he reminded himself. Spending one night in her bed did not give him the privilege of dispensing with formalities.
“Your Highness,” he said, rising from his chair and bowing properly, even though he couldn’t help picturing her naked and poised atop him, her breasts firm and high, her face a mask of pleasure as she rode him until they were both blind with ecstasy. To say they’d slept together, that they’d had sex, was like calling the ocean a puddle. They had transcended every preconceived notion he’d
